Media Release
AFMA 3/11 3 November 2003

Area closure off South Australia applies only to shark fishing - AFMA

The Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) says a proposal to close an area of the South Australian coastline applies only to targeted fishing for sharks.

AFMA’s acting Senior Manager for Southern Fisheries, Margot Sachse, said that contrary to some media reports, the proposal did NOT apply to recreational or other kinds of fishing.

Ms Sachse said AFMA was consulting with South Australian fishers holding Commonwealth shark fishing permits and other stakeholders with the aim of better protecting school sharks.

“The area closure was in fact, proposed by commercial fishing industry members.”

Ms Sachse said research indicated that pregnant school sharks aggregated in the shallow waters of the Head of the Bight before migrating to ‘pupping’ areas off Tasmania.

“School sharks have historically been overfished and will take years to recover because they are a slow breeding species. Obviously, protecting female school sharks is crucial to their recovery.

“Closure of the area where they aggregate off the South Australian coast (between Eyre Bluff and the Western Australian border) to shark fishing by Commonwealth-licensed fishers will help to promote recovery of the stock.

“I want to stress that this proposal in no way seeks to prevent recreational fishing or other commercial fishing,” Ms Sachse said.

For further information or interviews, please contact: Simon Latimer (02) 6272 4844 (office) AFMA Communications 0409 567 424 (mobile)

Media Release
AFMA 28/11 28 November 2003

Australia learns valuable lessons on recovering orange roughy fishery

Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) Chair, Dr Wendy Craik, said the Authority was already responding to the issues raised in the report prepared jointly by Traffic Oceania and World Wildlife Fund titled Managing risk and uncertainty in deep sea fisheries: lessons learnt from orange roughy.

Orange roughy is caught on deep water seamounts. These fish are slow growing and can live over 100 years. This makes research difficult and expensive to undertake. Dr Craik agrees with the report’s authors that “these fisheries are challenging and complex to manage and as such a much more precautionary approach is required.”

The report details four case studies of orange roughy fisheries around the world, including Australia’s St Helen’s Hill fishery. The St Helen’s Hill fishery, part of the Eastern Management Zone of the South East Trawl Fishery, was Australia’s first major orange roughy fishery and was discovered in the late 1980’s. Catches in the Eastern Management Zone peaked in 1990 at 23,000 tonnes. Today, catches are limited to 820 tonnes, with the St Helen’s Hill area completely closed to commercial fishing.

“The St Helen’s Hill stock is currently below the target level. In response, AFMA has applied very restrictive management measures including limited entry, gear restrictions, area closures, significantly reduced Total Allowable Catches and an industry funded monitoring program to recover the stock to target levels,” Dr Craik said.

“From the lessons learnt in the St Helen’s Hill fishery, a much more precautionary approach has been taken with the Cascade Plateau orange roughy fishery. In the peak of winter, spawning fish aggregate on the Cascade Plateau making them vulnerable to capture. In response, AFMA and industry have closed this area during spawning to protect the stock. An extensive scientific monitoring program has been in place since 2001 to collect valuable data to assist the management of this species, including the setting of precautionary Total Allowable Catches in this area.

Fishing boats that operate in these deep water fisheries are typically large factory trawlers. Constraining management arrangements result in effort displacement where fishing boats look further afield for their fish. “AFMA strongly endorses the need for joint action to address excess fishing capacity on the high seas worldwide.” Dr Craik said. This will be the subject of Deep Sea 2003, an international fishing conference being held in Queenstown, New Zealand next week.

For interviews, please contact: Geoff Richardson AFMA (02) 6272 4846 (office)

The Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) is the agency responsible for ensuring the sustainable use and efficient management of Commonwealth fisheries resources on behalf of the Australian community. AFMA manages fisheries within the 200 nautical mile Australian Fishing Zone.